On hydrophobicity and conformational specificity in proteins

Increased sequence hydrophobicity reduces conformational specificity: A mutational case study of the Arc repressor protein

The amino-acid sequences of soluble, globular proteins must have hydrophobic residues to form a stable core, but excess sequence hydrophobicity can lead to loss of native state conformational specificity and aggregation. Previous studies of polar-to-hydrophobic mutations in the β-sheet of the Arc repressor dimer showed that a single substitution at position 11 (N11L) leads to population of an alternate dimeric fold in which the β-sheet is replaced by helix. Two additional hydrophobic mutations at positions 9 and 13 (Q9V and R13V) lead to population of a differently folded octamer along with both dimeric folds. Here we conduct a comprehensive study of the sequence determinants of this progressive loss of fold specificity. We find that the alternate dimer-fold specifically results from the N11L substitution and is not promoted by other hydrophobic substitutions in the β-sheet. We also find that three highly hydrophobic substitutions at positions 9, 11, and 13 are necessary and sufficient for oligomer formation, but the oligomer size depends on the identity of the hydrophobic residue in question. The hydrophobic substitutions increase thermal stability, illustrating how increased hydrophobicity can increase folding stability even as it degrades conformational specificity. The oligomeric variants are predicted to be aggregation-prone but may be hindered from doing so by proline residues that flank the β-sheet region. Loss of conformational specificity due to increased hydrophobicity can manifest itself at any level of structure, depending upon the specific mutations and the context in which they occur.

A double point mutation at residues Ile14 and Val15 of Bcl-2 uncovers a role for the BH4 domain in both protein stability and function

B-cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2) protein is the archetype apoptosis suppressor protein. The N-terminal Bcl-2-homology 4 (BH4) domain of Bcl-2 is required for the antiapoptotic function of this protein at the mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum (ER). The involvement of the BH4 domain in Bcl-2's antiapoptotic functions has been proposed based on Gly-based substitutions of the Ile14/Val15 amino acids, two hydrophobic residues located in the center of Bcl-2's BH4 domain. Following this strategy, we recently showed that a BH4-domain-derived peptide in which Ile14 and Val15 have been replaced by Gly residues, was unable to dampen proapoptotic Ca²⁺ -release events from the ER. Here, we investigated the impact of these mutations on the overall structure, stability, and function of full-length Bcl-2 as a regulator of Ca²⁺ signaling and cell death. Our results indicate that full-length Bcl-2 Ile14Gly/Val15Gly, in contrast to wild-type Bcl-2, (a) displayed severely reduced structural stability and a shortened protein half-life; (b) failed to interact with Bcl-2-associated X protein (BAX), to inhibit the inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate receptor (IP₃ R) and to protect against Ca²⁺ -mediated apoptosis. We conclude that the hydrophobic face of Bcl-2's BH4 domain (Ile14, Val15) is an important structural regulatory element by affecting protein stability and turnover, thereby likely reducing Bcl-2's ability to modulate the function of its targets, like IP₃ R and BAX. Therefore, Bcl-2 structure/function studies require pre-emptive and reliable determination of protein stability upon introduction of point mutations at the level of the BH4 domain.

Young Genes are Highly Disordered as Predicted by the Preadaptation Hypothesis of De Novo Gene Birth

The phenomenon of de novo gene birth from junk DNA is surprising, because random polypeptides are expected to be toxic. There are two conflicting views about how de novo gene birth is nevertheless possible: the continuum hypothesis invokes a gradual gene birth process, while the preadaptation hypothesis predicts that young genes will show extreme levels of gene-like traits. We show that intrinsic structural disorder conforms to the predictions of the preadaptation hypothesis and falsifies the continuum hypothesis, with all genes having higher levels than translated junk DNA, but young genes having the highest level of all. Results are robust to homology detection bias, to the non-independence of multiple members of the same gene family, and to the false positive annotation of protein-coding genes.

Extracellular polymeric substances protect Escherichia coli from organic solvents

The protective roles of extracellular polymeric substances againstn-butanol have been investigated and determined.

Mapping hydrophobicity on the protein molecular surface at atom-level resolution

A precise representation of the spatial distribution of hydrophobicity, hydrophilicity and charges on the molecular surface of proteins is critical for the understanding of the interaction with small molecules and larger systems. The representation of hydrophobicity is rarely done at atom-level, as this property is generally assigned to residues. A new methodology for the derivation of atomic hydrophobicity from any amino acid-based hydrophobicity scale was used to derive 8 sets of atomic hydrophobicities, one of which was used to generate the molecular surfaces for 35 proteins with convex structures, 5 of which, i.e., lysozyme, ribonuclease, hemoglobin, albumin and IgG, have been analyzed in more detail. Sets of the molecular surfaces of the model proteins have been constructed using spherical probes with increasingly large radii, from 1.4 to 20 Å, followed by the quantification of (i) the surface hydrophobicity; (ii) their respective molecular surface areas, i.e., total, hydrophilic and hydrophobic area; and (iii) their relative densities, i.e., divided by the total molecular area; or specific densities, i.e., divided by property-specific area. Compared with the amino acid-based formalism, the atom-level description reveals molecular surfaces which (i) present an approximately two times more hydrophilic areas; with (ii) less extended, but between 2 to 5 times more intense hydrophilic patches; and (iii) 3 to 20 times more extended hydrophobic areas. The hydrophobic areas are also approximately 2 times more hydrophobicity-intense. This, more pronounced "leopard skin"-like, design of the protein molecular surface has been confirmed by comparing the results for a restricted set of homologous proteins, i.e., hemoglobins diverging by only one residue (Trp37). These results suggest that the representation of hydrophobicity on the protein molecular surfaces at atom-level resolution, coupled with the probing of the molecular surface at different geometric resolutions, can capture processes that are otherwise obscured to the amino acid-based formalism.

A polymetamorphic protein

Arc repressor is a homodimeric protein with a ribbon-helix-helix fold. A single polar-to-hydrophobic substitution (N11L) at a solvent-exposed position leads to population of an alternate dimeric fold in which 3₁₀ helices replace a β-sheet. Here we find that the variant Q9V/N11L/R13V (S-VLV), with two additional polar-to-hydrophobic surface mutations in the same β-sheet, forms a highly stable, reversibly folded octamer with approximately half the α-helical content of wild-type Arc. At low protein concentration and low ionic strength, S-VLV also populates both dimeric topologies previously observed for N11L, as judged by NMR chemical shift comparisons. Thus, accumulation of simple hydrophobic mutations in Arc progressively reduces fold specificity, leading first to a sequence with two folds and then to a manifold bridge sequence with at least three different topologies. Residues 9-14 of S-VLV form a highly hydrophobic stretch that is predicted to be amyloidogenic, but we do not observe aggregates of higher order than octamer. Increases in sequence hydrophobicity can promote amyloid aggregation but also exert broader and more complex effects on fold specificity. Altered native folds, changes in fold coupled to oligomerization, toxic pre-amyloid oligomers, and amyloid fibrils may represent a near continuum of accessible alternatives in protein structure space.

Hydrophobic moments, shape, and packing in disordered proteins

Disordered proteins play a significant role in many biological processes and provide an attractive target for biophysical studies under physiological conditions. Disordered proteins may be classified as (a) proteins with overall well-defined secondary structures, interspersed with regions of missing residues, or (b) natively unstructured proteins which lack definite secondary structure. The spatial profile of second order hydrophobic moment for disordered proteins depicts the distribution of hydrophobic residues from the interior to the surface of the protein and indicates the lack of a well-formed hydrophobic core unlike that of the globular proteins. This trend is independent of the size or position of the disordered region in the sequence. The hydrophobicity profile of the ordered regions of the disordered proteins differ considerably from that of globular proteins implying the role of disordered parts and the significance of hydrophobic interactions in the folding of proteins. The shape asymmetry of the two classes of disordered proteins is determined by calculating the asphercity and shape parameters, derived from the cartesian components of radius of gyration tensor. Disordered proteins of group a are more spherical as compared to the natively unstructured proteins (group b), which are more prolate. Both groups of proteins exhibit similar types of side-chain backbone contacts, as that of the globular proteins. While disordered proteins contains few hydrophobic residues natively unstructured proteins are characterized by a residues of low mean hydrophobicity and high mean net charge.

Energy landscape analyses of disordered histone tails reveal special organization of their conformational dynamics

Histone tails are highly flexible N- or C-terminal protrusions of histone proteins which facilitate the compaction of DNA into dense superstructures known as chromatin. On a molecular scale histone tails are polyelectrolytes with high degree of conformational disorder which allows them to function as biomolecular "switches", regulating various genetic processes. Unfortunately, their intrinsically disordered nature creates obstacles for comprehensive experimental investigation of both the structural and dynamical aspects of histone tails, because of which their conformational behaviors are still not well understood. In this work we have carried out ∼3 microsecond long all atom replica exchange molecular dynamics (REMD) simulations for each of four histone tails, H4, H3, H2B, and H2A, and probed their intrinsic conformational preferences. Our subsequent free energy landscape analysis demonstrated that most tails are not fully disordered, but show distinct conformational organization, containing specific flickering secondary structural elements. In particular, H4 forms β-hairpins, H3 and H2B adopt α-helical elements, while H2A is fully disordered. We rationalized observed patterns of conformational dynamics of various histone tails using ideas from physics of polyelectrolytes and disordered systems. We also discovered an intriguing re-entrant contraction-expansion of the tails upon heating, which is caused by subtle interplay between ionic screening and chain entropy.

Why are polar residues within the membrane core evolutionary conserved?

Here, we present a study of polar residues within the membrane core of alpha-helical membrane proteins. As expected, polar residues are less frequent in the membrane than expected. Further, most of these residues are buried within the interior of the protein and are only rarely exposed to lipids. However, the polar groups often border internal water filled cavities, even if the rest of the sidechain is buried. A survey of their functional roles in known structures showed that the polar residues are often directly involved in binding of small compounds, especially in channels and transporters, but other functions including proton transfer, catalysis, and selectivity have also been attributed to these proteins. Among the polar residues histidines often interact with prosthetic groups in photosynthetic- and oxidoreductase-related proteins, whereas prolines often are required for conformational changes of the proteins. Indeed, the polar residues in the membrane core are more conserved than other residues in the core, as well as more conserved than polar residues outside the membrane. The reason is twofold; they are often (i) buried in the interior of the protein and (ii) directly involved in the function of the proteins. Finally, a method to identify which polar residues are present within the membrane core directly from protein sequences was developed. Applying the method to the set of all human membrane proteins the prediction indicates that polar residues were most frequent among active transporter proteins and GPCRs, whereas infrequent in families with few transmembrane regions, such as non-GPCR receptors.

Protein aggregation profile of the bacterial cytosol

BACKGROUND

Protein misfolding is usually deleterious for the cell, either as a consequence of the loss of protein function or the buildup of insoluble and toxic aggregates. The aggregation behavior of a given polypeptide is strongly influenced by the intrinsic properties encoded in its sequence. This has allowed the development of effective computational methods to predict protein aggregation propensity.

METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS

Here, we use the AGGRESCAN algorithm to approximate the aggregation profile of an experimental cytosolic Escherichia coli proteome. The analysis indicates that the aggregation propensity of bacterial proteins is associated with their length, conformation, location, function, and abundance. The data are consistent with the predictions of other algorithms on different theoretical proteomes.

CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE

Overall, the study suggests that the avoidance of protein aggregation in functional environments acts as a strong evolutionary constraint on polypeptide sequences in both prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms.

Structure is three to ten times more conserved than sequence--a study of structural response in protein cores

Protein structures change during evolution in response to mutations. Here, we analyze the mapping between sequence and structure in a set of structurally aligned protein domains. To avoid artifacts, we restricted our attention only to the core components of these structures. We found that on average, using different measures of structural change, protein cores evolve linearly with evolutionary distance (amino acid substitutions per site). This is true irrespective of which measure of structural change we used, whether RMSD or discrete structural descriptors for secondary structure, accessibility, or contacts. This linear response allows us to quantify the claim that structure is more conserved than sequence. Using structural alphabets of similar cardinality to the sequence alphabet, structural cores evolve three to ten times slower than sequences. Although we observed an average linear response, we found a wide variance. Different domain families varied fivefold in structural response to evolution. An attempt to categorically analyze this variance among subgroups by structural and functional category revealed only one statistically significant trend. This trend can be explained by the fact that beta-sheets change faster than alpha-helices, most likely due to that they are shorter and that change occurs at the ends of the secondary structure elements.

Effects of surface-to-volume ratio of proteins on hydrophilic residues: decrease in occurrence and increase in buried fraction

The size of a protein is an important factor for understanding the sequence-structure relationship, and it affects both the amino acid composition and the residue burial of proteins. However, it is usually measured as the number of amino acids, although these effects would result from the reduction of surface regions relative to the volume of core regions in larger proteins. In addition, although these two effects are dependent on each other, they have been studied separately. In this study, we investigated them by considering the surface-to-volume ratio (SVR), and observed the correlation between them. We found that the reduction of several hydrophilic residues is more strongly correlated with SVR than with protein size (the number of amino acids) and that SVR directly affects the amino acid composition. The difference as a descriptor between SVR and size is also supported by the observation that the secondary structural elements correlate completely differently with SVR and with size. Furthermore, for the four most hydrophilic residues, glutamine, arginine, glutamic acid, and lysine, balances between the decrease in composition and the increase in core burial were observed. We found that the burial of glutamine and arginine became accelerated at SVR = 0.3 A(-1) (approximately 132 residues) as the protein size increased, but that lysine has an upper limit of 0.9% for its occurrence in the core. The uniqueness of lysine was also elucidated by comparison with the burial environments of the four hydrophilic residues.

The twilight zone between protein order and disorder

The amino acid composition of intrinsically disordered proteins and protein segments characteristically differs from that of ordered proteins. This observation forms the basis of several disorder prediction methods. These, however, usually perform worse for smaller proteins (or segments) than for larger ones. We show that the regions of amino acid composition space corresponding to ordered and disordered proteins overlap with each other, and the extent of the overlap (the "twilight zone") is larger for short than for long chains. To explain this finding, we used two-dimensional lattice model proteins containing hydrophobic, polar, and charged monomers and revealed the relation among chain length, amino acid composition, and disorder. Because the number of chain configurations exponentially grows with chain length, a larger fraction of longer chains can reach a low-energy, ordered state than do shorter chains. The amount of information carried by the amino acid composition about whether a protein or segment is (dis)ordered grows with increasing chain length. Smaller proteins rely more on specific interactions for stability, which limits the possible accuracy of disorder prediction methods. For proteins in the "twilight zone", size can determine order, as illustrated by the example of two-state homodimers.

Surface hydrophobic groups, stability, and flip-flopping in lattice proteins

Two-dimensional lattice protein models were studied in two approximations of the conformational equilibrium to elucidate the role of surface hydrophobic groups in their stabilities. We demonstrate that stability of any compactly folded sequence is determined by its ability to "flip-flop" (refold) into alternative compact structures. The degree of stability required for folded sequences determines the average numbers of surface hydrophobic groups in stable lattice structures which are in good agreement with ratios of core to surface hydrophobic groups in real proteins. However, the average destabilization of the native structure per surface hydrophobic group is small (0-0.25 kcal/mol), often disagrees with the free energies derived from the ratios of core to surface hydrophobic groups in the same structures, and has a combinatorial entropic nature independent of the strength of structure stabilizing interactions. This suggests that the free energies derived from the core to surface ratios of hydrophobic groups in real proteins have little to do with folding thermodynamics. On average, sequences with highly stable native structures are the least hydrophobic. The results suggest that in designing novel stable proteins hydrophobic groups on the surface should be avoided to reduce the possibility of flip-flopping. The average stability of highly designable structures is never higher than that of some low designability structures, contrary to the accepted view. In the equilibrium approximation with alternative compact and partially unfolded structures, the requirement of high stability selects a unique 5 x 5 structure formed by only a few sequences, suggesting much stronger sequence selectivity than commonly thought.

A topologically related singularity suggests a maximum preferred size for protein domains

A variety of protein physicochemical as well as topological properties, demonstrate a scaling behavior relative to chain length. Many of the scalings can be modeled as a power law which is qualitatively similar across the examples. In this article, we suggest a rational explanation to these observations on the basis of both protein connectivity and hydrophobic constraints of residues compactness relative to surface volume. Unexpectedly, in an examination of these relationships, a singularity was shown to exist near 255-270 residues length, and may be associated with an upper limit for domain size. Evaluation of related G-factor data points to a wide range of conformational plasticity near this point. In addition to its theoretical importance, we show by an application of CASP experimental and predicted structures, that the scaling is a practical filter for protein structure prediction.

Entropic criteria for protein folding derived from recurrences: six residues patch as the basic protein word

Some research has suggested that patches of six constitute an important amino acid window length in proteins for conveying information. We present database evidence that supports this conjecture, as well as additional recurrence-based data that characterization and quantification of these words affect the folding/aggregation features of proteins. Other indirect evidence is presented and discussed.

Stability constraints and protein evolution: the role of chain length, composition and disulfide bonds

Stability of the native state is an essential requirement in protein evolution and design. Here we investigated the interplay between chain length and stability constraints using a simple model of protein folding and a statistical study of the Protein Data Bank. We distinguish two types of stability of the native state: with respect to the unfolded state (unfolding stability) and with respect to misfolded configurations (misfolding stability). Several contributions to stability are evaluated and their correlations are disentangled through principal components analysis, with the following main results. (1) We show that longer proteins can fulfil more easily the requirements of unfolding and misfolding stability, because they have a higher number of native interactions per residue. Consistently, in longer proteins native interactions are weaker and they are less optimized with respect to non-native interactions. (2) Stability against misfolding is negatively correlated with the strength of native interactions, which is related to hydrophobicity. Hence there is a trade-off between unfolding and misfolding stability. This trade-off is influenced by protein length: less hydrophobic sequences are observed in very long proteins. (3) The number of disulfide bonds is positively correlated with the deficit of free energy stabilizing the native state. Chain length and the number of disulfide bonds per residue are negatively correlated in proteins with short chains and uncorrelated in proteins with long chains. (4) The number of salt bridges per residue and per native contact increases with chain length. We interpret these observations as an indication that the constraints imposed by unfolding stability are less demanding in long proteins and they are further reduced by the competing requirement for stability against misfolding. In particular, disulfide bonds appear to be positively selected in short proteins, whereas they evolve in an effectively neutral way in long proteins.

Comparing folding codes in simple heteropolymer models of protein evolutionary landscape: robustness of the superfunnel paradigm

Understanding the evolution of biopolymers is a key element in rationalizing their structures and functions. Simple exact models (SEMs) are well-positioned to address general principles of evolution as they permit the exhaustive enumeration of both sequence and structure (conformational) spaces. The physics-based models of the complete mapping between genotypes and phenotypes afforded by SEMs have proven valuable for gaining insight into how adaptation and selection operate among large collections of sequences and structures. This study compares the properties of evolutionary landscapes of a variety of SEMs to delineate robust predictions and possible model-specific artifacts. Among the models studied, the ruggedness of evolutionary landscape is significantly model-dependent; those derived from more protein-like models appear to be smoother. We found that a common practice of restricting protein structure space to maximally compact lattice conformations results in (i.e., "designs in") many encodable (designable) structures that are not otherwise encodable in the corresponding unrestrained structure space. This discrepancy is especially severe for model potentials that seek to mimic the major role of hydrophobic interactions in protein folding. In general, restricting conformations to be maximally compact leads to larger changes in the model genotype-phenotype mapping than a moderate shifting of reference state energy of the model potential function to allow for more specific encoding via the "designing out" effects of repulsive interactions. Despite these variations, the superfunnel paradigm applies to all SEMs we have tested: For a majority of neutral nets across different models, there exists a funnel-like organization of native stabilities for the sequences in a neutral net encoding for the same structure, and the thermodynamically most stable sequence is also the most robust against mutation.

Coupled folding–binding versus docking: A lattice model study

Using a simple hydrophobic/polar protein model, we perform a Monte Carlo study of the thermodynamics and kinetics of binding to a target structure for two closely related sequences, one of which has a unique folded state while the other is unstructured. We obtain significant differences in their binding behavior. The stable sequence has rigid docking as its preferred binding mode, while the unstructured chain tends to first attach to the target and then fold. The free-energy profiles associated with these two binding modes are compared.